Abstract
Wilayah (Wilayat in Urdu and Persian) can be considered as the central tenet in Shia belief system. The concept of wilayah has played a major role in the direction, evolution, and development of Shia political thought throughout the history of Shi’ism. It was on the basis of the doctrine of wilayah that Shia Muslims have rejected the rule of other-than-imam as illegitimate at the cost of either living in fear or shedding blood. A critical review of the institution of marja’iyyat (the center of religious reference) whereby a Shia juristconsult (mhjtahid/faqih) assumes, what Abdulaziz Abdulhussein Sochedina has termed, the role of the ‘functional imam of the community’ ( ) shows that the power of a faqih lies in that he is bearer of a kind (discussed below) of the wilayah of the infallible Imams, albeit in a downward vertical order. Imam Khomeini developed his theory of wilayat-e faqih on the very base of the said concept and overthrew the Pahlavi monarchy which resulted in the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). The central argument of this article, therefore, is that one cannot grasp the nature and essence of Shia political thought without taking into consideration the concept of wilayah in Shi’ism.
Raziq Hussain. (2018) THE CENTRALITYT OF ‘WILAYAH’ IN SHIA POLITICAL THOUGHT, Noor-e-Marfat, Volume 09, Issue 02.
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